At UN, Zimbabwe Resolution Unveiled, with Name Games and Notice of Sanctions, Perhaps No Veto

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2zimnames070308.html

UNITED NATIONS, July 3 -- As the U.S. Mission to the UN unveiled its draft resolution to impose targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe, the Press was given a version with 11 targeted names, not 12. Missing in the draft the U.S. handed out was Gideon Gono, the central bank governor. But the UK mission said that Gono was and is on the list, and the U.S. later confirmed this. Was his omission, from the U.S. draft, a sign of some alliance between Washington and Harare high finance? "Don't read too much into it," Inner City Press was told.

July's president of the Council, Vietnam's Le Luong Minh, was coaxed to come out to the stakeout. He said that the Council's meeting on Zimbabwe will be Tuesday, something that the U.S. but not he had said the previous day. The format, he said, is still under consideration. Inner City Press asked him if Deputy Secretary General Asha Rose Migiro will brief the Council. The format is still not decided, he repeated, but "of course" Migiro would be invited. Video here.

An African Ambassador complained to Inner City Press that he thinks Migiro's job will be to present the mood at the African Union's Egypt meeting, which she attended, as more anti-Mugabe than in fact it was.

When Inner City Press pointed out to this Ambassador that Kenyan prime minister Odinga, for example, criticized Mugabe, the response was, "but of course, since he too got outside help."

News analysis: while Russian Ambassador Churkin on July 2 said, "We don't like sanctions" and said that the regional SADC process should be allowed to work, it not entirely sure that this resolution would be vetoed. That South Africa would vote against it appears to be nearly certain. But South Africa does not have a veto. Could Russia and China be convinced to abstain rather than veto? A cynic might think that since by publishing the twelve names days in advance of the vote they can just move any money that might be frozen, perhaps abstentions -- even in exchange for this absurd advance notice -- might be expected. We'll see.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2zimnames070308.html